The Next Avengers
by Neckee777
Summary: Tony Stark never wanted kids. Why would he? They were just another responsibility. All Tristan wants is some respect from his dad, and after uncovering everything about Tony's past Tony mysteriously disappears. The same thing has happened to the other Avengers scattered across the world, and SHIELD has called in all of their children to help. Please R&R! Please don't be too harsh.
1. Chapter 1

Tristan Stark was in his dads' workshop. He tinkered with bits and bobs, assembling something he'd been working on for quite some time now. He always worked on it when his parents were out. His mum was at work and Tony was off working with SSE on his new energy plan. Tristan no longer called Tony "dad," simply because Tony had never called Tristan by name. Hell, he'd never even called him "son." Tony always settled with "kid" or "sport" or something equally as childish.  
Tristan knew Tony had never wanted kids, and it didn't bother him. His mum adored him, and that's all he needed. Not some selfish half-hearted love from Tony Stark.  
SSE stood for Stark Sustainable Energy. It was a company run by none other than Tony Stark on developing clean and sustainable energy for the Earth. It said on the sign that SSE had been established in 2013, which wasn't really that long ago. Tristan had asked what Tony had done before SSE, but every time he got a dull response from him saying he was a mechanic.  
Tristan never thought there was more because mechanics don't earn billions of dollars a year, but his mum told him not to push it, so he didn't. But he was still curious. And that is what was causing him to build what he was building.  
"Master Tristan," JARVIS' resounding computerized voice said, "I might remind you that Mister Stark doesn't allow you to be down here."  
Tristan rolled his eyes. "C'mon, JARVIS, I've been down here thousands of times and you've never said a word to Tony. I've heard this warning every time and yet nothing has happened. What makes you think that this time I'm going to get up and leave?"  
"Touché, sir."  
Tristan smirked and went back to his work.  
"May I ask what it is you're building, sir?"  
"No you may not." Tristan said, taking the screw from between his teeth and fitting it into place.  
"From what I can gather from the resources you've taken, you are building a device to access your father's database. Would I be correct, sir?"  
Tristan stopped what he was doing and heaved a sigh. He spun on his swivel chair aimlessly, coming to a stop when he was facing his bench again.  
"Tony's been hiding something from me. Something about his past and I want to know what it is. I have a feeling like it is… or was… a major part of his life up until he married mum. Maybe even before then."  
"What are you hoping to learn, sir?" JARVIS inquired.  
"Details." Tristan said flatly. "I want to learn about my dad. Can't you just tell me?"  
"I'm sorry, sir, but I've been under strict orders since you were born to never divulge any information concerning Mister Stark's past."  
"I know," Tristan said, deflated. "I've been hearing the same thing for fourteen years."  
"Nine, actually sir." JARVIS corrected. "You started inquiring about your fathers' past when you were five."  
"I don't need the stats, JARVIS. I need the details. Thanks anyway."  
"Your sarcasm is unflattering, sir."  
"Good riddance." Tristan muttered.  
"Just a question, sir?" JARVIS said.  
"What is it?"  
"When do you hope to have this done?"  
"At this pace," Tristan grinned, "I'll have it done tomorrow."  
"Well, I hate to cut your pace short," JARVIS spoke, "but your father is entering the garage now."  
"Dammit." Tristan whispered. He gathered up everything he was working with and ran it into his room, where he stashed it in a drawer he'd built into the back of his bed.  
"JARVIS, you can't say anything about this."  
"Of course, Master Tristan."  
He ran up into the lounging area and leaped over the couch, landing softly on the cushions. He pushed a button in the arm rest and the TV turned on onto a programme about the Milky Way. Not ten seconds later, Tony Stark walked out of the elevator.  
"Hey Tony," Tristan sat up and waved.  
Tony barely looked at him. "Oh. Hey kid."  
"When will mum be home?"  
"I don't know. Aren't you supposed to be at school?"  
"It's school holidays, Tony."  
"Of course it is."  
Tristan sighed. A little decent treatment from his dad was one of the things he subconsciously craved. Was that too much to ask?  
Tony was just sitting down to a scotch when the phone rang.  
"It's Misers Potts, sir." JARVIS said.  
"Cool. Put her through." Tony said, sipping from his drink.  
The sound of Peppers voice filled the lounging area.  
"Hey honey. How's work?" Tony asked.  
"It's very, very busy." Tristan's mum said. "I think I'll be here till late. Listen, the house is closer to where I am right now, so I think I'll just go and stay there for the night."  
"Okay, then I'll go there and be with you." Tony said.  
"And leave Tristan alone?"  
"Are you kidding? He'll be fine!" Tony turned to Tristan. "How old are you, kid? Sixteen? Seventeen?"  
Tristan gave his dad a blank look. "I'm fourteen, Tony."  
"See?" Tony said, as if he'd made his point. "He'll be fine."  
"I don't know, Tony…" Pepper sounded unconvinced.  
Tristan spoke up. "I'll be alright, mum. Really. Will I get to see you tomorrow, though?"  
"I'll drop in before I go to work." Pepper said, and Tristan could practically see her smile. "Okay, I really need to go now. Love you guys."  
"Love you." Tristan and Tony said in unison.  
There was a moment of silence. Tony turned to Tristan. "What do you think you're doing? Saying that you love my wife?"  
"That's my mother, Tony, I think it's required." Tristan scoffed.  
"Oh yeah. I forgot that we were biologically related. Anyway," he got up from where he was sitting, "I'm going to the house. Don't have any parties while I'm gone and try not to blow up a floor."  
"That happened once, and if I recall it was _you _who blew up the floor."  
"What do you mean it was me? JARVIS, tell the kid he's wrong."  
"Actually, sir, it was you who blew up the floor." JARVIS said in his clear computerized voice.  
"What're you doing? You're supposed to be on my side." Tony looked dejected. He shook his head, looking back at Tristan. "Anyway, make your own dinner and go to bed at a reasonable time. I have a rather beautiful woman I have to go and see." And with that, Tony was gone.  
Tristan lay back down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling.  
"Hey JARVIS," he said.  
"Yes, sir?"  
"Do I have to go to bed at a reasonable time?"  
"I would highly recommend if you did, sir."  
"What if I disregarded your recommendation?"  
"Then no, sir, you don't have to go to bed a reasonable time."  
"JARVIS, what actually _is _a reasonable time to go to bed?"  
"For someone of your age, about eight-to-nine hours before you're due to wake up."  
"What if I couldn't care less about the statistics?"  
"Then a reasonable time would be whatever time you see fit, sir."  
"Awesome," Tristan leapt of the couch and made his way down to his dads workshop. "I'm going to tinker."  
"Very well, sir." JARVIS said. "I'm assuming I can't tell Mister Stark about this?"  
"Nope," Tristan said, "not a word."


	2. Chapter 2

Tristan yawned, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked down at his work. It was two in the morning, and he had finished what he'd been building for the last few months. From the outside, it just looked like a sleek black box. But on the inside it was a complicated mess of wires, circuits, microchips, processors and various other things. All that there was to do now was plug it in to the towers mainframe and hope that it worked.  
"I'm done JARVIS." Tristan said, stifling a yawn.  
"Bravo, sir." JARVIS said. "Now what do you plan to do?"  
"Plug it in." Tristan got up from his bench, taking the hacking device with him. He knocked on a panel he knew where a vital part of the towers circuitry was. "Open her up, JARVIS."  
"I'm afraid I cannot allow that, sir."  
"JARVIS, either you open it or I pry it open."  
JARVIS seemed to let out an exasperated sigh. "Very well, sir."  
The panel slid open, revealing a circuit board with a few switches on it. Tristan opened a small lid on the black box and from it drew a wire, which he attacked to a part of the circuit board. He then turned the box on.  
The lights flickered. And Tristan waited. He waited for something to happen. He didn't know what he was waiting for; he just knew that it was more than flickering lights. He waited for a full ten minutes. Then Tristan groaned.  
"Nothing…" He murmured.  
He went to unplug the box when JARVIS stopped him. "Uh, sir?"  
Tristan stopped. "Yes, JARVIS?" he said in a defeated voice.  
"You might want to look now."  
Tristan slowly turned around and caught his breath, a ridiculous grin spreading across his face. The black box had done its job.  
In front of Tristan were what had to be hundreds of projected holographic newspaper articles, blueprints, photos and video footage of seemingly ludicrous events, people and more.  
"JARVIS," Tristan said excitedly. "Keep all of this right here."  
He bolted up to his room, threw open his cupboard and started to rummage franticly around the mess of clothes, technology and old toys. Finally, Tristan found what he was looking for. It was one of his dads old universal tablets that had been thrown away, which Tristan had taken and fixed for his own uses, should he ever have any. And now he definitely did.  
He ran back down to the workshop, where all the information was still where it had been before.  
"JARVIS," Tristan said, "I need all of that," he gestured to all the holograms, "on here."  
"But, sir –"  
"No buts, JARVIS. All the information onto the tablet, ASAP."  
"Very well."  
One by one, the articles, photos and videos were flickering out in front of Tristan and appearing on the screen of the tablet. Tristan was buzzing with excitement. He would finally be learning about his dad.  
"All done, sir." JARVIS said after a few minutes. "Files have been successfully copied."  
Tristan picked up the tablet and punched the air. "Yes! Thank you, JARVIS."  
"Master Tristan, may I suggest you go to bed now?"  
"Thanks for the suggestion JARVIS, but I think I'll just kill the rest of the night reading."  
"As you wish, sir."

Tristan woke up at around ten o'clock. He hadn't even realised he'd fallen asleep. The things he'd read about the night before were… fascinating.  
Fascinating and scary and unbelievable, yet there was evidence set in stone. His _dad _was a _superhero. _It was so awesome.  
A little while later he was making himself breakfast.  
"So Tony got captured by terrorists? And then he built a suit of armour – the Iron Man Mark I – and escaped?"  
"That is correct, sir." JARVIS responded.  
"And from _that _experience he decided to stop building weapons? Yet he built the Iron Man Mark II?" Tristan asked, pouring himself a glass of juice.  
"Correct, yet again, sir."  
"He then kept building suits of armour, using his status to become more famous than he already was. He competed in an F1 race which is where he first fought Whiplash and all the Hammer Drones. And with the help of Sergeant Rodes finally, who modified the Mark II to become War Machine, they beat Whiplash." Tristan sat down to his cereal.  
"Right again, sir."  
"And – what, one or two years later? – there was the alien invasion of New York, and with that the Avengers Initiative. Which was a massive success. But the aftermath was terrible, leaving Tony with insomnia and anxiety. In his spare time he just kept pumping out more Iron Men. He got up to Mark 43 before he hunted down the Mandarin and ordered the clean slate program."  
"Yes, sir. That was effectively the end of his career as Iron Man." JARVIS tried to finish.  
Tristan gestured with his spoon and spoke through a mouthful of Coco-Puffs. "Ah, you see," he began, "that's where you're wrong. Among all of those files he had another blueprint. For another Iron Man. The Mark 44, which he never built." He sunk back into his chair and sighed. "So much mystery. It's… amazing. What I want to know more about is the Avengers Initiative. Does Tony have a database that compiles all the information on that?"  
"I'm afraid I can't say, sir."  
Tristan clicked his fingers. "So that's a yes. Now it's just about finding it." He shook his head with disbelief. "Tony was Iron Man…" Tristan paused. "Hey JARVIS –"  
"I really don't think I'm going to like where you're going Master Tristan."  
"Would it be totally wrong to construct the Mark 44? Modified to fit me, of course."  
"I don't think your father would take kindly to you building weapons."  
"But he won't know." Tristan said desperately. I thought struck him. "JARVIS, what time is it?"  
"Just about going on noon, sir."  
Tristan stood up. "Where's mum? She said she'd come to see me."  
"Misers Potts is a very busy woman, Master Tristan, I'm sure she had urgent business to attend to immediately."  
Tristan frowned. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right." He clapped his hands together. "No matter. Just gives me time to tinker." He dumped his bowl in the sink and went down into the workshop.  
He found the black box and opened it up, reprograming it to bring up any information relevant to the Avengers Initiative. He plugged it in, and while he waited, brought up the blueprints for the Iron Man Mark 44.  
"Ok…" he said quietly to himself. "For this to work we'll need to edit the dimensions and measurements… We could use this instead of that…" Tristan was in his element. He went to work.


	3. Chapter 3

They were fighting. Again.  
Sophie Rogers sat and watched as her parents yelled and swore and occasionally threw things. She watched with a bemused expression. This had been the third time today that they'd broken out into a fight. And it was the third time today Sophie had watched, bored and exasperated, at their fighting.  
She was bored and exasperated because quite truthfully, they were fighting about nothing. This fighting happened once a month, as Sophie knew full well about. The thing is, when Natasha Romanoff had her time of the month, things didn't go smoothly.  
Of course, she only got mega-pissed on one day. A few days before then and a few days after she'd just be in an intolerant mood. And of course, after that one day of yelling, swearing and again the occasional thrown object, Steve and Natasha went back to being wubbely-dubbely in love again.  
Sophie rolled her eyes and stood from where she was sitting. She edged behind her dad and made her way to her brothers' room all the way over the other side of the house. When she got to the door she didn't even bother knocking. She walked in.  
Her brother was, unsurprisingly, lying on his bed reading a book. Sophie was a year-and-a-half his junior, and he never let her forget it.  
The minute she walked in, he instantly put his book on his chest and glared at her. "What are you doing in my room?"  
"Cool your beans, Dex. I'm just trying to get away from it all." Sophie said casually.  
Dexter gestured towards his door. "Then get away from it all in your _own _room."  
Sophie took a seat as his desk. "Why are you so uptight about your room?"  
"No one is supposed to be in my room!" He yelled that last part. When he noticed her arched eyebrow he sighed and gave up. "What's going on?"  
"Mum and dad are having another snap at each other."  
Dexter shrugged. "Give it a while. They'll love each other in the morning." He went back to reading his book.  
"Hey, Dex?" Sophie asked.  
"What?" Dexter droned without looking up.  
Sophie hesitated. "Nothing." She said.  
"Okay," Dexter droned again, turning the page.  
"Do you think this'll be the fight that ends mum and dad?"  
"I doubt it." Dexter said. "Why don't you pray on it?"  
Sophie rolled her eyes. Dexter and her had been born and raised Christians. Every Sunday since they were born their dad had taken them to church. As Dexter had gotten older, however, he'd become more independent, and decided that there wasn't a God or even a benevolent entity. Sophie still went to Church with her dad and she still said her prays before every meal and before she went to bed, because she still had a little faith. And even though church was boring, afterwards her and her dad would go to a café and get coffee and cakes. It was a thing they'd done for years now, and Sophie really enjoyed the father-daughter quality time.  
Meanwhile, Dexter would other be reading or training and their mother would be working.  
Their parents, in Sophie's opinion, had pretty cool jobs. Steve used to be a soldier in one of the highest task forces in the US Military, and Natasha worked for a branch (they weren't sure what is was called) that focussed on global security. Dexter thought she worked for the UN, and Natasha had neither confirmed nor denied that assumption. Sophie thought Dexter was on the money.  
Steve no longer worked. He'd retired early to spend time with his kids. When he said kids, he meant Sophie, since Dexter didn't do much other than read and train. Dexter was the perfect mix between active and lazy. Their dad would've loved to spend more time with his son, but Dexter didn't seem to care.  
"Is there anything else?" Dexter's' question interrupted Sophie's thoughts.  
"What?" Sophie replied."  
Dexter sighed. "Is. There. Anything. Else?"  
"Uh… no." Sophie said.  
"Then would you _please _get out of my room."  
Sophie just looked at him like he was stupid, but she stood and went. As she got out into the hall she heard her parents still yelling. She also noticed that the phone was ringing. She went into her parents room where another set was and answered the phone.  
"Agent Romanoff." The voice on the other end said.  
Sophie was confused. "Noooo, this is Sophie."  
"Is your mother there?" The voice said. He sounded pretty serious and Sophie didn't feel like talking to a weird guy who called her mum 'agent.'  
"Who is this?" Sophie asked cautiously.  
"That is confidential. Now is your mother there or not?"  
"Suuuuure." Sophie exited the room and went into the room where her parents were yelling.  
"Mum." She said. Natasha didn't hear her.  
"Mum!" Sophie said a bit louder. Still no luck.  
"MUM!" Sophie yelled. The argument stopped and both her parents looked at her. "Phone." Sophie said, handing her mum the phone.  
Natasha took it and put it to her ear. "Hello… No, that can't be right… No, no, I'm telling you - … What? Okay, okay… Yes, sir." She hung up and looked at Steve. "We have to get out of here."  
Sophie was confused. "What's going on?"  
"You'll know later, Sophie. Right now we have to get going. Go and pack a bag. We're going away for a while."  
"To where?"  
Steve put his hands on her shoulders and crouched to her height. "You can't ask questions now. Just do as your mother says and meet back out here in ten minutes, okay?"  
"Okay, dad." Sophie was just turning to go when an explosion rocked the building. She was thrown off her feet and was sent flying across the room in a blast of heat and sound. She hit a wall and landed with a heavy thud on the carpeted floor.  
"Sophie!" Steve yelled. She could barely hear him her ears were ringing so bad. "Get to cover!"  
Sophie crawled behind the couch, each movement straining her muscles. She got behind the couch and felt her head buzzing. She reached up and felt neat gash on her forehead, blood trickling down slowly.  
She saw Dexter running down the hall, and she saw the look of fear in his eyes when he saw his parents.  
Sophie peeked up over the couch and saw men in black apparel, training their guns on her mum and dad. There was a helicopter outside, not too far away, visible through the hole that had been blown into the wall.  
Suddenly Dexter was next to her. He put a finger to his lips. "Stay down. Stay quiet." He mouthed.  
Sophie nodded. She lay down and peeked over the side of the couch.  
Steve and Natasha had their hands above their heads in surrender. One of the men approached them with a pair of handcuffs. That's when Natasha hit him across the jaw.  
The man staggered back and all the other soldiers got ready to shoot. Natasha was quick. She dislocated the man's elbow, took the gun from his hands and threw it across to Steve, who caught it and began shooting at the other assailants. Natasha pulled the pin of a grenade on the man's belt and kicked him towards his companions. The man panicked. He tried to pull the grenade from his belt but with no luck. One of his 'friends' punched him square in the face and pushed him through the hole in the wall. There was a scream, only to be ended by an explosion.  
The other men charged Natasha and Steve. Steve ducked under one man's assault and sent an uppercut flying. Natasha leapt over the first man to charge her and ducked the attack of the second. She swept his feet out from under him and spun to meet the first guy. She grabbed the barrel of his gun and pulled him closer. She elbowed him in the face and pulled the trigger of his gun, shooting the guy on the ground. She pried the gun from his fingers and swung the end like a baseball bat, hitting him in the face and rendering him unconscious.  
Steve was fighting with the two other men, and was doing so expertly. He attacked one and then went for the other. Threading together feints, quick strikes and counter attacks with ease. After a few seconds the two men were knocked out at his feet.  
Steve reached down and pulled the helmet from one of them. He tossed it up once in the air to test its weight, and then threw it through the hole in the wall at the helicopter. The helmet cracked the windscreen, but otherwise bounced off harmlessly.  
The helicopter ascended and disappeared from sight.  
"Kids," Steve said.  
Sophie and Dexter stood, panting even though they'd done nothing.  
"What just happened?" Sophie asked dumbly.  
"Enough time for explaining later. Right now we have to go. Go pack your things."  
Dexter nodded, his mouth in a hard line. He led Sophie down the hall and into her room before he went to his.  
Steve wiped the sweat from his brow. It had been many a year since he'd been on the field, in any type of combat at all.  
That's when he heard a soft thud. He turned and saw Natasha collapsed on the ground. He ran over to her and crouched down.  
"Natasha," he said urgently, shaking her shoulder. "Natasha, get up."  
He felt more so than heard the man walk up behind him. He tensed himself, ready for another fight. He shifted his position, ready to turn.  
"I wouldn't, if I were you." The unknown man said.  
Yet that voice… That voice was familiar…  
Steve went to turn but was met with heavy strike to the face. He hit the ground. The word was spinning. Then it all went black.


	4. Chapter 4

The Orphanage was a nice building.  
Sam didn't understand why when people thought of an Orphanage they thought of big, dull, depressing, almost formidable building with a boring colour scheme. No, this Orphanage wasn't dull and depressing. It was a reasonably nice building. Not ugly enough that people looked at it with disgust, but not pretty enough to stand out. It wasn't by any means dark and gloomy and depressing. It was just sort of… Average.  
It was a brick building, but clean brick with a nice tiled roof. Three storeys high but reasonably narrow. It looked smaller than it was, since it stretched out towards the back where passers-by couldn't see. Out back was plenty of play room. Kind of. There was a large trampoline which had seen better days, a swing set and a jungle gym. There was a small open space of lawn where the boys played their sports. The Orphanage had even invested in getting a proper set of goals with a net and everything. And up the back there was a large tree. And that was where Sam was now.  
Of course, Sam wasn't ungrateful for what the Orphanage had done for her and the other kids. She was just kind of bored of it all. Then again, that comes with spending eight of her thirteen years copped up in a place like the Orphanage.  
She didn't really know what happened to her parents. The Orphanage told her that her mum had died during childbirth and that her dad had simply run off somewhere. She didn't ask questions or push any further. She didn't have to. She was here now and that's all there was to it.  
Sam wasn't necessarily angry at her dad for running out on her. During her childhood she never really knew the man, since she was always with a babysitter. She figured she was just a liability of a sort; something her dad wanted but didn't have time for. And she wasn't _mad _at him for it. Besides, all the kids around here were missing parents and she didn't know any different. This was how she'd grown up.  
But at least other kids got adopted or given to a foster family or something. Sam had seen kids come and go for years, yet she'd never been the one to get picked by a family. She was always the one who was looked over or cast out, even by the other kids. When she asked why the Orphanage fed her excuses like "they were looking for something else" or "don't worry about it. Your shot will be next." Excuses she used to believe…  
Now she was older Sam didn't need the excuses or the assurance that someone would pick her. She knew full well why she didn't get picked.  
It had everything to do with her attitude and social skills. Her attitude: she didn't take kindly to people. She kind of blocked herself off and didn't say much, and when she did it was either to make a point or defend herself. And she didn't necessarily defend herself with her words. As for her social skills: simply, she didn't have any. She was shunned by other kids and treated like an outcast, but for good reason. Sam never blamed them. That's why she sat up in her tree, with her slingshot, shooting pebbles she'd gathered from anywhere and everywhere which she carried around in a little pouch.  
The slingshot had been a gift from her dad. She didn't remember when she got it; she just knew that he'd given it to her. She'd had it for years and had always carried it around. And she still did. It never left her.  
She'd taught herself how to shoot and after many years of going far and wide, missing completely or hitting something else entirely, she hit every time. Sam no longer had to aim for a target, she just instinctively knew when to shoot and how to do it right. She never missed, and she'd kept a record of how many times she'd hit her target consecutively. The last time she missed was over two years ago. She'd lost count a while back.  
So here she was, sitting in a fork in a tree. The same fork she'd sat in every day for the last eight years. She wasn't going anywhere and she wasn't in a hurry. Life was simple and life was easy.  
"Hey Samantha!"  
Well, it could be easier…  
"Samantha!"  
The kids name was Ben. He was a full two year Sam's junior yet he still found enough confidence to pick on her, even after all the times she'd floored him. Ben was a scrawny kid, but somehow he'd managed to get a pack of friends who followed him around like lost sheep. They didn't ask _why _Ben wanted them to do stuff, they just did it. Sam wasn't mad at Ben's mob of hooligans though. They were all without parents and they needed a leader, and somehow they thought doing things for Ben would earn them respect.  
"Samantha!" Ben called again.  
"It's Sam, Benjamin." Sam said flatly, not looking at him.  
"It's rude to not look at someone when they're talking to you, Samantha." Ben sneered.  
Sam rolled her eyes and looked at him. "What?" She said.  
"Oh, nothing." Ben sniggered. "I just like getting you to do what I tell you to." Him and his pack of no-brains all laughed like it was the funniest joke in the world.  
Sam huffed and took a pebble from her pouch, fed it to her sling and shot it, all within the space of two seconds. The pebble flew through the air and cracked Ben on the nose. He stumbled back and his hands instinctively went to where he'd been shot. Sam smiled at the shocked expressions on the faces of Ben's gang. Priceless. Ben's eyes were watering, and when he pulled his hands away there was blood.  
"You made me bleed." Ben said, glaring at Sam like she was the Devil. "You made me bleed!" He screeched. He reached down and picked up the pebble. He was ready to throw it. "Why I oughtta –"  
"Sammy!"  
The threat was cut short by the arrival of Lucy. Lucy was just seven years old, and everyone at the Orphanage adored her. Even all the kids. Lucy danced up to the base of the tree and knocked on the trunk like it was a door. She looked up.  
"Sammy?"  
"Yes, Lucy?" Sam said warmly.  
"There are people at the front desk who want you." Lucy said, sounding innocent and clueless like she always did.  
Sam frowned. People? Here? For her? Her frown was only for a second, but she replaced it with a smile for Lucy. "Thank you, Lucy." She said.  
"You're welcome!" Lucy smiled and gave Sam a thumbs up. She was missing her two front teeth. Sam thought she was so cute.  
Lucy ran off and Sam slid her slingshot into her pocket and slid down the trunk of the tree. She stood with her hands on her hips, facing all the boys who were looking at her with a mix of confusion and astonishment.  
"Well, boys," Sam said, walking through the group. "It's been fun, but we'll have to settle this another day." She pat Ben on the shoulder and he recoiled and she laughed.  
Her curiosity grew to excitement as she made her way to the front desk of the Orphanage. She looked up and down and around, soaking in the sights. Could this really be the last time Sam would see the Orphanage?  
Sam was positively buzzing by the time she got to the front desk. And then she saw who was waiting for her and her excitement plummeted and just sat in the pit of her stomach like a lazy dog.  
Two men in expensive black suits were waiting for her with the Orphanage director, Mrs K. Along with their black suits they each wore shiny black shoes and sleek sunglasses. One of them carried a briefcase. On it was a weir insignia. A circle with a kind of boxy eagle thing in it.  
As she entered one of the men, the one who was going bald, looked at her. "Are you Samantha Barton?" he asked very seriously.  
"Um.. Yes. Yeah, that's me." Sam said quietly. Suddenly she was very nervous.  
"We're going to need you to come with us." Baldy said.  
Sam looked over at Mrs K, who was looking away from the men.  
"Mrs K?" Sam asked.  
Mrs K looked at her and smiled a sad smile. "It'll be ok Sammy. These men are going to take you away for a little while."  
"But where?" Sam thought she might cry.  
"Somewhere nice and safe." Mrs K said. "I promise."  
Lucy ran in and gave Sam her backpack. "I packed your things for you." She said, grinning her clueless grin. Sam took it and slung it over one shoulder.  
"Thanks, Lucy." And she hugged her, a single tear rolling down her cheek. "I'll miss you."  
"I know." Was all Lucy said, but she returned the hug all the same.  
Sam stood up and turned to the men in black. The guy other than Baldy was holding open the door. "If you please." He said.  
"I don't want to go." Sam said stubbornly.  
"I understand that," the guy said, "but this is extremely important."  
"Why?"  
"We'll explain everything on the way."  
Sam walked through the door and towards an SUV, where Baldy was holding open a door for her.  
"Who are you guys?" Sam asked.  
"We work for a top secret government funded organisation." Baldy replied. "An organisation known as SHIELD."


End file.
